How we research

How we choose what to cover

We start from caregiver use cases, not brand catalogs. For example, "What fall-detection options work for someone who refuses to wear a pendant?" — and we work backwards from that question to candidate devices, regardless of brand visibility or affiliate payout.

A device enters the review pool only if it is:

• Currently sold in the U.S. market with active manufacturer support;
• Documented well enough for independent specification analysis — datasheets, regulatory filings, or third-party teardowns;
• Plausibly relevant to one of our six coverage pillars.

How we work

HomeSensorLab is a desk-research operation, not a clinical testing lab. We synthesize what is already publicly verifiable — manufacturer specifications, regulatory filings, peer-reviewed research, and the lived experience of caregivers we speak with — and we say so when the evidence thins out.

For each review, our process is:

1. Define the buyer question. We articulate the specific caregiver decision the review needs to serve (e.g. "in-home vs. mobile for a parent who still drives") before looking at products.
2. Collect public evidence. Manufacturer specifications, FDA 510(k) filings where the device is a regulated medical device, peer-reviewed studies, aggregated user reviews across multiple retailers, and reporting from established outlets (Consumer Reports, AARP, occupational therapy journals).
3. Talk to people doing the job. Where possible, we interview caregivers, occupational therapists, and senior-care professionals who have used the category in real households.
4. Apply the scoring rubric below. Same rubric, every review, weights unchanged.
5. Disclose limits. If we have not personally handled a device, we say so. If our evidence is purely document-based, we say so.

Where a review is supplemented by first-party device handling, the review states that explicitly inline. The default assumption — unless we say otherwise — is that a given review is based on publicly verifiable information, not on a lab measurement we made ourselves.

Scoring rubric

Every device is scored on five dimensions, weighted as follows. Weights are fixed across reviews; affiliate program terms and manufacturer talking points do not change them.

Data sources

• Manufacturer specifications and product documentation — claimed performance, support terms, software update history.
• Regulatory filings — FDA 510(k) submissions for devices that are classified medical devices, FCC filings for radio behavior.
• Peer-reviewed research and public health guidance — NIA falls research, CDC STEADI, clinical literature on fall-detection accuracy and PERS outcomes.
• Aggregated user reviews across multiple platforms — Amazon, Best Buy, Reddit's caregiving communities, Better Business Bureau complaints. We look for repeated complaint patterns, not isolated outliers.
• Independent industry reporting — AARP Caregiving, Consumer Reports, occupational therapy and senior-care publications.
• Caregiver and professional interviews — families, occupational therapists, senior-care professionals.

What we don't do

These are explicit limits, not aspirations:

• We don't run a clinical accuracy lab, and we don't claim measurements we haven't made.
• We don't accept paid placements, sponsored editorial, or "review-for-product" arrangements.
• We don't accept brand-controlled review templates or pre-publication copy approval.
• We don't write under fabricated personal experience. Our editorial voice is that of independent researchers — we work with caregivers and clinicians, but we don't invent first-person caregiving stories we haven't lived.
• We don't use AI to spin up reviews at scale; every review is researched, written, edited, and signed off by a named human.
• We don't operate a comments section or community forum — outside the scope of this site's purpose.

Conflict-of-interest policy

HomeSensorLab is building toward affiliate participation but has no active affiliate programs at this time. We are in the process of applying to Amazon Associates and selected senior-tech advertiser programs on the Impact and ShareASale networks. No commission-bearing links currently exist on this site. See our full affiliate disclosure for the canonical, up-to-date list.

When affiliate relationships do come online, three things are non-negotiable:

• Affiliate commission rates do not influence ranking order or scoring weights.
• We refuse paid placements, sponsored editorial, and "review-for-product" arrangements.
• Any device with a material conflict — for example, supplied on loan by a brand we have an ongoing commercial relationship with — is disclosed inline in the review.

Error correction policy

We treat factual errors and missing disclosures as bugs, not as opinions. If you spot one, email us at ethan@homesensorlab.com with the URL and a short description of the issue.

Our commitments:

• Acknowledge within five business days. Initial reply, even if the investigation is still open.
• Fix visibly. Corrections appear as a dated note at the top or bottom of the affected page — never silently rewritten. Substantive corrections also bump the article's Last reviewed date.
• Retract when warranted. If a recommendation is materially wrong, we revise the recommendation and explain what changed.
• Disclose disclosure failures. If we discover that an affiliate disclosure was missing or unclear, we add it and add a correction note acknowledging the omission.

Update and review policy

Every review carries a Published date and, once revisited, a Last reviewed date. We re-verify on a six-month cadence, plus immediately when:

• A device receives a meaningful firmware update or hardware revision;
• A provider changes its pricing, contract terms, or monitoring infrastructure;
• A device is end-of-life'd or recalled;
• A reader-submitted correction lands.

Reviews that have gone more than twelve months without re-verification will carry a visible "stale" notice at the top until they are reviewed again, rather than being silently left up.

This methodology page is itself versioned. The current version and last-reviewed date appear under the page title above; revision history is appended at the bottom of this page as changes land.

References and further reading

For readers who want to verify the public data we cite — or build their own picture independent of any single review site:

• CDC — Older Adult Falls Data — population-level statistics on fall incidence and outcomes.
• CDC STEADI — clinical framework for fall-risk screening and prevention.
• NIA — Falls and Falls Prevention — National Institute on Aging research summaries.
• FDA 510(k) Premarket Notification — searchable database of cleared medical devices, useful for verifying device classifications and predicate devices.
• AARP Caregiving — research, guides, and consumer reporting on caregiving and aging-in-place technology.
• FTC — Consumer Protection for Older Adults — guidance for recognizing deceptive product claims and elder-targeted fraud.

Revision history

• v1.0 — 2026-05-14: Initial public methodology. Replaces the launch-day placeholder. Clarifies that HomeSensorLab is a desk-research operation; aligns affiliate language with the current "no active programs" reality; adds error-correction policy, an explicit "what we don't do" list, and a references section.